“BAH!” Cassidy yelled as the cat leapt out from behind a box. “Fuck you, cat!” Cassidy yelled as a shiver went through her body. She shook off the surprise and collected herself. After watching the cat run out the other end of the alley, Cassidy exhaled, turned confidently, and plunged into the ground.
4
Cassidy's eyes opened. She grimaced in pain as she sat up, rubbing the back of her head. She looked to her sides, up and down a small tunnel, with tiny pillars of dim sun light streaming down from above. She grunted as she stood up, looking above to a gunk-covered grate. A small stream of water trickled beneath her.
“I know what—”
“AHHH!” Cassidy screamed.
“AHHH!”
Cassidy wheeled around to see a short, hunched, ancient-looking man wearing dirty clothes, standing in the sewer with her. “What the hell are you screaming for?” Cassidy yelled.
“You scared me!”
“You scared me, you creepy bastard!”
The two of them stood there, breathing heavily as they tried to collect themselves. “Ok! Ok,” Cassidy said. “What am I doing here? Who are you?”
“As I was saying!” the old man replied, annoyed at being interrupted. “I know what you seek.”
Cassidy stared back, distrusting. “Alright. What do I seek.”
The old man leaned in and smiled. “You seek the fountain.”
Cassidy stared back at him, confused bordering on annoyed. “What?”
“The fountain. You seek it. And I can help you find it.”
Cassidy didn't know how to respond at first. She just stared back at him, this grizzled old sewer fossil, smiling back with prominent, crooked teeth. “I have no idea what you're talking about. What fountain? What the hell am I doing down here? Who the goddamned hell are you?”
The old man looked back, equally as confused as Cassidy. “You don't seek the fountain?”
“What? What fountain?”
The old man started to poke and prod at Cassidy, searching her pockets. “That's impossible. You must seek the fountain. You've touched its waters.”
Cassidy squirmed her body around, trying to get away from his probing. “I seek some soap for you, you stinky fucker. Stop being so damned cryptic and answer my questions.”
The old man abruptly stopped and brought his right eye right up to Cassidy's left, staring into her. “Maybe you don't know that you seek the fountain. Maybe that makes you best.”
“Maybe that makes you crazy,” Cassidy said, staring back into his eye.
“My dear girl, I am the least crazy person you have ever met.” he replied.
“You're doing a damn fine job of seeming crazy,” Cassidy said.
“That's only because you come from a world of sound and fury that signifies nothing,” the old man said as he stepped back. “And anyone who does not revel in that fury stands out as odd. And good lord, if only they knew how odd they themselves were!” He then turned and walked ahead of Cassidy in the dank tunnel. “Well, come on,” he said, turning around briefly.
Cassidy began to follow. “Now that you've gotten your little speech about the failings of mankind out of the way, mind telling me what's going on?”
“It's not failings. I think that much of humanity simply doesn't know! Maybe they don't know because they don't have enough experience. Because there's both mankind and then there's a man, and the two are separate. Imagine what a single man could do with the memories of a civilization! Maybe he wouldn't be so afraid of the world!”
“This coming from a sewer-dwelling hermit.”
“I'm down here not because I'm afraid. I'm down here because it's more pleasant than up there. Like I said, too much noise.”
“At least the noise makes life interesting, and besides, that doesn't matter. Stop being so evasive and answer a question before you start babbling.”
“Do you think me crazy?”
“I'm not saying that. I'm saying that you are doing a damn fine job of appearing crazy.”
“So you do think me crazy.”
“I don't know. You're doing a pretty good job of carrying on this conversation. Most crazy people I know can't do that. They scream about spiders in their heads or something like that. So most likely, you're not crazy, you're just annoying.”
“So does that define crazy for you? How do you know that they don't actually have spiders in their hair and you simply cannot see them?”
“Because I trust my eyes.”
“You still assume that your reality is better than theirs.”
“That's because my reality can keep me fed and clothed. Theirs can't.”
“They don't seem to much value food and clothing, though. Why is what they value inferior to your values”
“Because my values allow me to persist, to survive. They do not persist. They die.”
“Again, you put the cart before the horse. Why should they value persistence?”
“Because life is better than death. Existence is better than nonexistence,” replied Cassidy, getting annoyed.
The old man stopped and turned, “My dear girl, you have so much to learn.”
“Again, I didn't come down here to discuss your life choices.”
“Aye, but we are nonetheless.”
“Yeah, because you won't shut up about it.”
The old man pursed his lips and thought for a moment. “Indeed I won't!” he said with a smile, continuing on. “Have you ever thought about that?”
“About what?”
“Life? Such as how long you would like to live?”
“I would like to live for as long as I can,” said Cassidy. “Again, life is better than death, because if I'm dead, I can't make the decision.”
“So what is actually best is the decision. As such, life is not best, a choice is best, and we don't necessarily need life to have a choice.”
“Oh yeah. Just look at all the dead people choosing to come back to life.”
“HA! Indeed! I had never thought of that! What a wonderful perspective. How do you know that the dead do not stay dead by choice? How do you know that the dreams in the sleep of death are not so wonderful as to keep them from ever returning to the wakeful life?”
“Alright, I'm having a fun time talking nonsense and all, but could you please tell me what the fuck is going on!?” Cassidy demanded.
“Yes, yes,” replied the old man. “Can't give me five minutes of decent conversation...” he grumbled. “I apologize for luring you down here as I did. You were being followed. I had to find a way to get you away from them.”
“Followed? By who?” Cassidy asked, her footsteps splashing in the small stream of water as she slipped on some wet stone.
“Don't know! Don't care!” replied the old man. “But I've had too many people come looking for the fountain for all the wrong reasons. Not letting them get to it.”
“What is this fountain? How did you lure me down here? How did you put your voice in my head?”
“It's unimportant. It would take too much time, and any answer I could give you wouldn't be satisfying.”
“Well try!”
“Enh. Alright. Frankly, I don't know how I did it, but I did. I sensed you the moment you showed up in New Orleans. I felt ripples of you hours before you even arrived. As though the entire world was water, and you and I were the only ones in it. You had to have felt me too. You have to feel the pull.”
Cassidy's face became furtive. Her pace slowed. And then she stopped. “I did... I did feel something. It was faint... almost like the very beginning of a headache... What was it?”
The old man stopped and turned around. “I don't know. I've never known. I call it the everflow — the eternal water — the cosmic liquid that surrounds us all.”
“That's remarkably unhelpful,” said Cassidy.
“I know!” replied the old man with a smile. “That's why I didn't bother telling you. Nothing I tell you will help you, and what I want to do is help you. And for you to help
me. We can help each other! I can see into you, my dear. I can see your strengths, your weaknesses, your fears. And you may have some funny ideas about how the world should be, but you have to be the one I've been waiting for. You are needed.”
“What does any of that mean?” Cassidy demanded.
“All will become clear... hopefully,” he said, glancing away. He then turned and started to trundle quickly down the sewer.
Cassidy sighed in annoyance. “Where are we?” asked Cassidy. “Do you at least know that?”
“Indeed! I'm where I've always been!”
“Oh great, yes, another cryptic answer. New Orleans! How long have you been here?”
“Names mean so little after awhile.”
“God dammit!”
“Sorry! Sorry. We're in the old sewers of New Orleans. They've been mostly forgotten because they didn't do what they were intended to do: help with flooding. All they did was get filled with gunk and then flood themselves! I use them to get around the city. I hate being above ground. People. Meh! Noisy and stupid. They never stop to see the world as it is because they're so obsessed with controlling some small part of it. They clean their kitchens and trim their gardens, as though their fear of a world out of control dominates their every waking thought.”
“At least they don't smell bad,” said Cassidy.
“That is a fair point,” replied the old man. “But enough about them. Just upsets me. So what do you seek, young lady, if not the fountain?”
“I seek my friends.”
“Ooh, they must be good friends for you to journey so far to find them. Have they gone missing?”
“They are good friends. And they've gone missing in the sense that they were kidnapped. I came here looking for a man who may have had information. But he died some time ago.”
“That's all?” asked the old man. Cassidy nodded. “Do you know anything about who kidnapped them?”
“Very little. They are borderline god-like. Everywhere, with machines like you wouldn't believe.”
The old man nodded. “What a coincidence,” he mumbled.
“What is?” asked Cassidy.
“Fate works strangely, my dear. And if fate is the artificer that I suspect her to be, by finding the fountain, you will find your friends.”
“What fountain?!”
The old man stopped again and turned to Cassidy. “The fountain of youth, dear girl. The fountain of youth.”
---
George walked up to Claudette who was attaching a large battery to an enclosed machine, a small door open revealing inner workings of gears and belts. Every tinker and tweak she performed simply adding to the cacophony of clanking and clattering that filled the massive lab.
“Hi,” George said, smiling.
“Oh, good afternoon,” replied Claudette in a smooth tone.
“Working in the battery lab?” George asked.
“Yes. Yes indeed,” Claudette replied, standing up straight and removing her insulated, rubber work gloves. “We're making great progress. One of the guys down there is excited about leaving so he can work on smaller things with batteries. He has some idea about putting battery-powered telephones in carriages. He's a funny guy.”
George shrugged. “That sounds like a rather good idea to me. I'd buy that.”
“Enh,” replied Claudette. “It doesn't seem quite ready to me. You'd have to stop and plug it in. It makes more sense to have telephones in booths of some sort.”
George thought about it. “Alright, yeah. That makes sense.” Claudette kicked off her rubber boots and slammed shut the metal door on her machine. “So, um... you, uh... you want to get lunch?” George asked.
“I can't,” Claudette replied, kicking the machine. “I'm trying to get this goddamned piece of shit working, and it's not going well. I don't know what the hell I did wrong. It worked fine without the battery.” Claudette looked at George who was obviously disappointed. “Why don't you spend more time with the others in the lab?”
“Oh, well, they're generally lost in their own things,” replied George. “I don't find much in common with them. I guess there's a part of me that feels uncomfortable by their easy enthusiasm.”
“That's just Jacobson's constant complaining. Go talk to them!” commanded Claudette.
“I also don't want to interrupt them. They don't come over to me very often, meaning that they aren't very much interested. If I was lost in work, I wouldn't want to be bothered either.”
“George, sometimes, to find friends, you have to go out and find them. They don't always just wander by.”
George nodded. “I know. But at the same time, I don't want to force myself on people.”
“You're not forcing yourself on people. You're saying hi. Just... go!”
“Would you like to get lunch later?”
“I'll think about it, now go!”
George thought. “Yes. You're absolutely right. Sometimes... I just... actually, no. I'm going to go. I'm bothering you.”
“You're not bothering me, George. This thing is bothering me. I'm saying that you need to go talk to other people unless you're going to turn into a sad, pathetic, bump on a log like Jacobson.”
“I don't know... I like him.”
“He spends all day napping. It's not healthy. Look,” Claudette said, pointing out into the main work area. “The chuckleheads working on that stupid bipedal walker always need help. They've been at it for months and can't get things right.”
“I've noticed. Yeah. I'm going to go see if they need help. It's not as though I have much else to do.”
“There's hope for you yet,” Claudette said.
“Maybe,” George replied.
Claudette smiled and nodded as George walked into the center of the great chamber.
“Hi guys,” said George.
“Ah, George. How's things?” asked a graying, older man dangling from underneath the walker, a few feet off the ground with a large wrench in his hand.
“Doing well,” replied George. “I noticed that you've been sort of stuck for the past week. I'm not working on much. You want some help.”
“Seriously?”
“Well, yes, seriously. Why would I ask something like that as a joke?”
“Well, everyone... never mind, yes! Help would be much appreciated. First thing, help me get this bolt off. The goddamned thing is stuck like pig.”
Claudette stood over by her large contraption, a smirk on her face. She watched as George got into the thick of things with the walker, then returned her attention to her own machine, giving it another kick, causing it to thunk to life.
---
Gideon slammed the cabinet drawer shut. “This is absurd! We're wasting time!”
“I'm sorry,” said Claire quietly.
“Oh no, no, please. I'm very sorry,” replied Gideon. “I didn't mean you. I meant this whole... series of events. It has been trying on all of us. I am absolutely not upset with anything you have done.”
“I am sorry, though. I wish that I could be of more help.”
“You have been a help. We know that we need to be here. What's here, we don't know. But something is here. That's enough.”
Jebediah came clomping up from the basement and breathed deeply at the top of the stairs. The two looked at him. “Where's Cassidy?” he asked. “She's been gone for hours.”
“No clue,” said Gideon.
“I hope she hasn't done anything stupid,” said Jebediah.
“I doubt it,” replied Gideon. “She's feeling pretty aimless right now. She only does stupid stuff when she's confident.”
“And how do you know that with such certainty?”
“Because. I've known people like her. She's fine.” Jebediah walked over to the large window and looked out into the street, the gas lamps providing light in the gloaming. “And also, if she had gotten into trouble, we'd know about it by now.”
“What do you both mean by that?” asked Claire. “She seemed so kind.”
“Oh, she is kind,” replied Jebediah. “She's also a bull and all the world is her china shop.”
They all sat in silence for a time, relaxing.
“Are you boys married?” asked Claire.
“No,” said Gideon.
“Not anymore,” said Jebediah.
“Sweethearts?” she asked.
Gideon chuckled. “You've never worked for government before, have you?”
Claire smiled. “No. I can't say that I have.”
“How about you?” asked Gideon. “Every married?”
“Yes. Once. Twenty-five years ago when I was just eighteen. I had some small wealth from my family. My husband took it and gambled it away.”
“You should have fought him,” said Jebediah.
“With what, Mister Ames? Not many ways to back then.”
“Why didn't you divorce him sooner? I don't think anyone would have judged,” said Gideon.
“You do not know what others would and would not judge for,” replied Claire. “And besides. I loved him. I was foolish, but who wasn't at that age?”
“When did you finally divorce?” Gideon asked.
“Oh, I didn't. I found him on the street in front of the house one night, all bloodied up. I think he owed someone money. Died not too long after that. They took the house, and I moved into a tenement. I was educated, so I did well enough keeping books. I saved and then came down here.”
“Well, you're doing very well for yourself now,” said Gideon, in an almost triumphant tone.
“Oh certainly,” Claire said. “I don't mind it now. Things are better. I wouldn't ever get married again, though. I don't want to lose my money.”
“You wouldn't,” said Jebediah. “The laws are quite different now from twenty-five years ago.”
“Laws and laws that are enforced are different things, Mister Ames,” replied Claire. “I'd still lose it all, and there's nothing much that I could do. Maybe if I had a reputation or a family, but not just little old me.”
Jebediah's eyes fell as he watched a couple walk down the street, the woman hanging on the man's arm. He sighed. “Well. For whatever it's worth... I should get back to work.” He then turned and walked back downstairs.
Cassidy St. Claire and The Fountain of Youth Parts I, II, & III Page 56